If you have been to Walt Disney World in the past 5 years, you've seen them everywhere. In front of the castles. Stopped dead in the center of Main Street. Filling every switchback of every line. They're everywhere.
I'm talking about people who are bent over their smartphones, trying to navigate the Walt Disney Company's daily scheduling demands. Each hunched-over guest is forming a Disney Hump, the rounded neck and spine of a theme park guest contending with the virtually mandatory My Disney Experience app.
Even the Disney parks' press photographs are filled with depictions of guests crowded around their phone screens rather than looking around to notice the supposedly iconic sights of Cinderella Castle or Spaceship Earth.
Ever since Disney Parks decided to convert faster attraction line access into a lucrative new income stream by selling timed Lightning Lane reservations, guests are constantly on their phones trying to schedule their next pass, and, unlike in the parks' best era, it's much easier today to spot a Disney Hump than to locate a meet and greet with a famous Disney character.
A few years ago, StandbySkipper (standbyskipper.com), an independently owned service, launched to help straighten out your Disney Hump. We've been keeping an eye on the app's development—and its customer satisfaction levels—as it has established itself.
Similar services have attempted to gain a foothold, but for various reasons, including breaches of Disney's legal policies, not all contenders have survived. But the reviews for StandbySkipper have been so reliably positive (here's one, and another, and another, and some more) that Frommer's can now feel confident in sharing this service with you as a potential paid tool to make your Disney vacations easier.
Frommer's Disney World, Universal & Orlando
Preparing for an Orlando vacation can be a full-time job, and it costs a small fortune. Most other books on the market make the problem worse, burying vacationers in endless pages of pointless details unquestioningly cheering for the high-priced theme parks and resorts. But this lightweight, fact-pa...
Get the bookFrommer's Disney World, Universal & Orlando
Preparing for an Orlando vacation can be a full-time job, and it costs a small fortune. Most other books on the market make the problem worse, burying vacationers in endless pages of pointless details unquestioningly cheering for the high-priced theme parks and resorts. But this lightweight, fact-pa...
StandbySkipper does the Lightning Lane legwork for you
StandbySkipper describes itself as "an app that looks for Lightning Lanes so you don’t have to."
First, users must have purchased—on their own and outside of StandbySkipper—a park ticket for the day as well as the Lightning Lane Multi Pass, which gains entrée to the Lightning Lane system.
Most people also preplan their first three Lightning Lanes of the day ahead of time, since the Disney reservation system opens for preplanning a few days in advance, before StandbySkipper services can kick in.
But after midnight on the big day of your park visit, StandbySkipper's services activate. Users tell the app which attractions they most want to ride next, and are given a few options for the time of day they want to target.
Once you tell the system what you want to do, you can put your phone away, because instead of forcing you to constantly hunch over Disney's app while searching in vain for the next convenient Lightning Lane slots, StandbySkipper does the searching for you and sends you a push notification when it has been victorious in booking those spots for you.
How does something like this avoid the ire of Disney for gaming its system?
Because it's not actually gaming the system. Before you can start using the service, you have to "friend" StandbySkipper inside the official My Disney Experience app, which by Disney's own rules gives anyone the right to help schedule Lightning Lanes for you.
"The MDE Terms specify very clearly that Friends and Family can find experiences for you," StandbySkipper's FAQ explains.
Its programming is written to search for Lightning Lane availability every few minutes instead of incessantly, as not to be unreasonably aggressive in snatching slots before they can be seen by anyone else. (That's a pretty neighborly way to go about things—has anyone told the makers of AI that they could think of others this way, too?)
"Keep in mind that the app is designed to help you reduce screen time and is not faster than a human (by design). We want everyone (even non-StandbySkipper users) to have a great experience with LLs," the app's makers say.
But even an app that only looks for availability every few minutes takes a lot of pressure off you. For every Lightning Lane time slot that StandbySkipper finds and books, your posture (and your phone's battery life) will be saved from shrinkage.
One downside: The app cannot book the one or two premium attractions in each park that you have to pay for individually with Lightning Lane Single Pass, like Rise of the Resistance at Disney's Hollywood Studios. StandbySkipper can only work with attractions on the main list of things eligible for Multi Pass.
Now for the flying elephant in the room: How much does it cost?
The price for this automated line booking valet is $25 per day or $45 for a full week. That cost covers everyone, whether there's one person in your party or up to 12. The app can also change the mix of people in your party for each ride.
It's painful enough that Disney has successfully convinced so many customers to spend another chunk of change for Lightning Lanes after they already paid so much for admission to begin with. After all, waiting in line at Disney used to be free. We have called Lightning Lane a scam, and we still feel that way.
But for those guests who insist on adding Lightning Lane to their vacation budgets, StandbySkipper at least makes Disney's scammy upcharge less disruptive and more functional since it prevents Lighting Lane planning from dominating a day at the resort.
StandbySkipper can be downloaded in the Apple App Store and at Google Play.
Frommer's Disney World, Universal & Orlando
Preparing for an Orlando vacation can be a full-time job, and it costs a small fortune. Most other books on the market make the problem worse, burying vacationers in endless pages of pointless details unquestioningly cheering for the high-priced theme parks and resorts. But this lightweight, fact-pa...
Get the bookFrommer's Disney World, Universal & Orlando
Preparing for an Orlando vacation can be a full-time job, and it costs a small fortune. Most other books on the market make the problem worse, burying vacationers in endless pages of pointless details unquestioningly cheering for the high-priced theme parks and resorts. But this lightweight, fact-pa...